Jargon 20: Passage (by Michael McClure)

I checked mail yesterday and Michael McClure’s package came. It was an original copy of Jargon 20: Passage, published in 1956 by Jonathan Williams. I immediately sat down and read the whole book except for For The Death of 100 Whales which I know well. The first poem is simply called

Poem

Linked part to part, to to knee, eye to thumbMotile, feral, a blockhouse of sweatThe smell of the hunt’sA stench, …my foeter.The eye a bridegroom of tortureColors are linked by spiritEuglena, giraffe, frogCreatures of grace – Rishiof their own right.

As I walk my legs say to me ‘RunThere is joy in swiftness’.As I speak my tongue says to me ‘SingThere is joy in thought,The size of the wordIs its own crabbed flight from crabbedness.’

And the leaf is an acheAnd love an ache in the back.The stone a creature.

A PALISADE

The inside whitewashed.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..!

A pale tuft of grass.

The other poems in the book are Point Lobos: Animism, The Mystery of the Hunt, Night Words: The Ravishing and The Breech, ending with For the Death of 100 Whales.

Jargon 20 Card

Night Words: The Ravishing

How beautiful things are in a beautiful roomAt nightWithout proportionA black cat on a white spreadA black longhaired cat with a sensitive human faceA white robe hangs on the wallLike a soft ghostWithout proportionSongs flit through my headThe room is calm and still and coolBlue gray stillnessWithout proportionThe plants are aliveGiving off votive oxygenTo the benevolent pictures above themSongs flit through my headI am taken with insomniaWith ambrosial insomniaAnd songs flit through my headThe room is softenedThings are without proportionAnd I must sleep

This era of McClure’s work predates his decision to center all poems on the page, a radical act in the late 50s. In 1956 McClure turned 24. How someone that young could have perception this deep is remarkable. Already tracking concepts like animism and the cosmology inherent in seeing everything as without proportion. And that perception has deepened over the years because his latest work is as energetic and inventive as anything he has ever written. He turns 80 in October 2012.

This gift came as a thank you for my introduction for the re-issue of Specks which Talon Books of Vancouver is publishing in 2012.

He’s a true visionary and has been one of my poetry heroes and teachers.